“Prayer for the French Republic,” playing at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on W. 47th Street, is one of the most stunningly written plays you will see on Broadway.
Joshua Harmon has created a story that takes the audience on a journey with the Salomon family, a Jewish family in France in 2016–2017. He tells the story of four generations of the family and what happened to the grandparents and their children in 1944 as Jewish people in France were arrested just for being Jewish. The family owned a piano store, and took a great deal of pride in their work and the fact that their product bought people joy.
The play starts with Patrick, the son of Pierre and brother of Marcelle, recalling the story of his family and what occurred in their history in a racist France, which went from being a haven for Jewish people to being a place of persecution. Patrick, the play’s narrator, dramatically shares the stories of horror that his grandparents Irma and Adolphe faced in 1944, when their children and grandchildren were arrested and taken away. This was an act that resulted in only one son and one grandson returning to the grandparents.
The tragic story of what happened to the women in this family is also shared. The play transitions to showing the racist hatred that the family is surviving in 2016 in France as Daniel, Marcelle’s son, is attacked for wearing Jewish attire. He refuses to conceal that he is Jewish. His mother Marcelle and his father Charles can’t get him to see that he puts himself in danger every time he walks out of the house. His sister Elodie suffers from depression and believes Daniel should be able to dress as he pleases when he walks the streets. Enter Molly, their young cousin, a student from America, who does not follow Judaism the way they do.
The way that Harmon intermingles the story lets the audience see that everything old is new again, no matter how hateful it may be. Marcelle is a doctor, as is her husband Charles, but Charles finds that the attacks on their son are demonstrating that France is no longer safe for Jewish people. He finds himself afraid and wants to move to Israel for safety reasons. Marcelle does not want to uproot their lives and move to a country that neither she nor her children have ever been to.
Harmon gives the audience characters who represent different viewpoints in this play. On the one side, you have Elodie, who is very much pro-Israel and pro-Jewish, and feels that American Jews don’t know what it is like to feel unwelcome and therefore should not be giving their views about Jewish matters. In contrast to Elodie is Marcelle’s cousin Molly, who is from the United States: She is not a practicing Jew and does not support Israel’s treatment of Palestine, nor the American government’s support of Israel in this matter. It is interesting to hear her view and see how Elodie relentlessly attacks her, but then says that she dislikes people who don’t listen to other people’s views.
There is a gentleness, an urgency, and a poignancy as this three-hour drama unfolds. This is a family that takes on the role of wanderers to make sure that they keep their children safe from hatred. It is a family that does what they feel they need to do to find a more unthreatening way of life. It is moving how they connect this family to the Jewish people’s history of having to wander to find safety.
Prayer for the French Republic” has a very touching scene where the Jewish people are praying that they are safe in France, but this is also the moment that Charles realizes that to stay safe, you must do more than pray; drastic circumstances call for drastic measures. What’s vivid about this play are the heart-wrenching moments when the horrors that befell this family are revealed in detail. There was such a silence in the audience.
The cast of this drama is stirring to watch and includes Betsy Aidem as Marcelle; Nael Nacer as Charles; Francis Benhamou as Elodie; Aria Shahghasemi as Daniel; Anthony Edwards as Patrick; Molly Ranson as Molly; Richard Masur as Pierre; Nancy Robinette as Irma; Daniel Oreskes as Adolphe; Ari Brand as Lucien, Pierre’s father; and Ethan Haberfield as Young Pierre. The play has riveting direction by David Cromer.
For more info, visit www.manhattantheatreclub.com.